1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal orientation promoter useful in a variety of uses including materials of a variety of optical members, such as an optical anisotropic film and a heat shielding film, a liquid crystalline composition including the promoter, a macromolecular material, and a film for which the liquid crystalline composition and the macromolecular material are used.
2. Background Art
When coated on a film on which an orientation treatment has been carried out (oriented film), liquid crystals are regularly oriented. In addition, the orientation state of liquid crystals can be controlled by sandwiching the liquid crystals between two oriented films. Therefore, in a liquid crystal display apparatus made up of a liquid crystal cell made up of rod-shaped liquid crystalline molecules and two substrates for sealing the molecules and an electrode layer for applying a voltage to the rod-shaped liquid crystalline molecules, since a state in which the rod-shaped liquid crystalline molecules are injected into gaps in the oriented film formed on the two substrates is formed, it is possible to relatively easily control the orientation state of the rod-shaped liquid crystalline molecules.
Meanwhile, for the purpose of the extension of the viewing angle of the liquid crystal display apparatus or the removal of coloration, an optical compensation sheet (wave plate) is disposed between the liquid crystal cell and a polarization plate. In this case, an optical anisotropic element having an optical anisotropic layer formed of liquid crystalline molecules on a transparent support is used as the optical compensation sheet. The optical anisotropic layer is formed by orienting the liquid crystalline molecules and fixing the orientation state. At this time, the liquid crystalline molecules are oriented using one oriented film provided between the transparent support and the optical anisotropic layer. However, it is difficult to uniformly orient (monodomain orientation) the liquid crystalline molecules from an oriented film interface to an air interface using one oriented film. This is because there is no orientation restraining force on a side of an interface on which an orientation treatment has not been carried out (the air interface), and therefore the orientation of the liquid crystals is disarrayed. When the liquid crystalline molecules are not uniformly oriented, light scattering is caused due to disclination, and an opaque film is formed. The above film is not preferable from the viewpoint of the improvement of the visibility of the liquid crystal display apparatus.
For the above necessity, attempts are being made to develop techniques that uniformly orient liquid crystals on the side of the interface on which an orientation treatment has not been carried out (the air interface) by supplying an orientation restraining force even when no oriented film is provided (Patent Literature 1). Here, the orientation of the liquid crystalline molecules is controlled by adding a liquid crystal orientation promoter. In addition, a liquid crystalline composition in which liquid crystalline molecules are easily and uniformly oriented using a liquid crystal orientation promoter is provided.